Time Heals no Wounds
by mabelreid
Summary: One shot... When you lose someone you love, no one can convince you that one day the hurting will stop.


**_Disclaimer: see my profile_**

She leaned against the driver's side door and watched him for a long time. He didn't move from his perch near the grey marble headstone, but she could see that his lips were moving as though he spoke to someone. He wore a pair of sunglasses, so she couldn't see his eyes, but there was something in his posture as he sat cross-legged to the left of the marker, that called out to her.

She pulled her brown herringbone jacket around her torso and crossed the narrow "avenue," as it was called, and stepped up onto the grass. It was still yellow in spots, but the recent warmer weather and a little rain had begun its annual work of renewal. What a word, she thought as she walked to him and stopped.

He looked up when her shadow fell over him. He hastily wiped at the tears on his cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

She sat on the other side of the headstone that said "Maeve Donovan" and had a date of birth and date of death below the name. Strangely, there was nothing like beloved daughter, or some verse of poetry, etched in the stone.

"It's been eight weeks," Alex said.

He stared at the grass. His hands thumped restlessly on his thighs, but he didn't speak.

"I was thinking about you and wondering how you're doing. I thought it was possible that I might find you here."

"Are you here to tell me eight weeks is enough and I need to stop wallowing in grief," he challenged her as a cloud briefly passed over the sun and cast long shadows over this supposed place of peace and closure.

"No. It's none of my business if it takes eight days, eight weeks, or eight years, Reid. I just want to help."

He began to pull blades of grass from the edges of Maeve's headstone and toss them away. He touched the marble so gently that Alex had to look away at another headstone that faced her. It read "Sacred to the memory of Michael James Seymour." The date of death was two days after his birth. She flicked her eyes away and found Reid staring at her.

"I shouldn't be here," he suddenly said and made to get to his feet.

She reached out over the space between them and touched his arm. "Why?"

"Because it's my fault she's dead."

"It's not your -"

"Don't say it's not my fault. I know better."

"Reid," she snapped when he made to get up again.

He sat down. "If she'd never met me, she might still be alive."

"How can you say that? You did everything -"

"I did everything wrong," he almost shouted. "What was I thinking?"

"You loved her, and you wanted -"

"Alex, please, how can you say that when I ignored her threat?"

She pulled off her sunglasses as more grey-white clouds collected over their heads and blocked most of the sunlight.

"You were respecting her wishes."

He laughed and it was the bitterest laugh she'd ever heard from him and she shivered a little. "She sends me a compliment letter about an article I wrote, and instead of saying thank you and moving on, I got involved. I was flattered that a woman thought I was smart and funny and…

"And, in a way, it was anonymous because you never met. You didn't have looks to muddle things. You thought if she saw you, she'd lose interest."

He nodded and tears began to fall from under his sunglasses. He took them off and wiped both hands under his eyes. "Yeah, I really didn't think about it until it was too late."

"What's really bothering you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Reid."

"I got caught up in the secrecy, okay. When she first told me about her stalker, I should have come to you. She didn't want me to. She said she couldn't bear it if I got hurt."

"You were flattered that someone loved you."

"Shouldn't I? Everyone else has someone, has had someone in their lives. You're married and you love your husband, and more than that, you accept him even though he's in another part of the world working as a doctor. You don't hold that against him. JJ's married to a cop and Hotch has Beth who went to another city for her job. I don't know about Rossi, but I'm sure he's happy in his own way and he's been married three times. Morgan likes the single life and Garcia has this weird ex-boyfriend thing with Kevin."

He finally stopped for breath so Alex said. "You wanted to be normal."

"Yeah," he said softly. "I should have known it wouldn't work. Some people don't get to be happy."

"That's not true, Reid, you -"

"Don't tell me I'll meet someone else. It took me thirty years to meet Maeve and she was the love of my life."

She didn't know what to say so she stared up at the clouds scuttling around the sky. The wind came up and tossed her hair over her shoulders. It felt like spring might be on tiptoe instead of striding confidently onto the scene.

"I can't believe I just said that," Reid said bitterly.

Surprise knocked through her, but she didn't look over at him. "Why _did_ you say it?"

"How could I be in love with someone I never met until the day she died? We had a forbidden relationship. It was secretive and very exciting in its way. It was perfect, no sexual tension because we didn't know what the other looked like. We had to accept each other on our personalities alone. Why risk a great thing? Therefore, it is my fault because I should have put aside the excitement of keeping a secret and helped Maeve. Instead, I just went along with her because, finally, I had something that was mine, alone. I've never had anything that was just for me."

He held up a hand to stop her from speaking. "How many times have we profiled stalkers like Dianne? I knew better than to ignore the threat she posed and to make matters worse, the Replicator is tied up in this somehow. You should hate me!"

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"I don't want you to say anything, Alex. I didn't want you here in the first place. You came here on your own."

"I'm not going to stomp off in a huff, if that's what you're thinking."

"I don't care what you do. I just want to be left alone."

She reached over and clasped his arm. "That's never going to happen, Reid. No," she squeezed tight when he tried to pull away and speak. "You had your say, and now I'm going to have mine."

"Fine," he spit out.

"First, do not say that your love for Maeve was not real. No one has the right to tell anyone who or how they love. Just because you never saw each other until the end, doesn't mean it wasn't real.

Second, no one begrudges you a secret. God knows we all need something outside of the job. If she made you happy, that's all anyone needs to know or worry about, including you."

Thirdly, her death wasn't your fault. Did you make a mistake by not trying to find her stalker? Yes."

"That makes me feel better," Reid said irritably.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad or good. You made a mistake and you'll have to live with it. If you want to be normal, then making mistakes like the rest of us is as normal as you can get."

"You haven't made life threatening mistakes."

"Reid, we know each other pretty well, but you have no idea what I've done in my life."

He jerked back at the anger in her voice. "Alex, I never -"

"You're not the only one that's suffered. You're certainly entitled to your grief, but you're not entitled to lose your confidence and start second guessing every move you make."

"I already got a lecture from Hotch. I don't need one from you."

He stood up. "Someone said once, that time heals all wounds. I don't believe that's true anymore. I certainly don't believe in closure."

He walked away with his shoulders hunched as though he carried the weight of Atlas on them.

She stayed there until the first drops of rain began to fall. They stained the headstone like tears and she shuddered. She reached out and touched the hard surface of the stone. She started to say something, then just stood and walked back to her car.


End file.
